Daily Sketchbook 10/16 (and for 10/18)

Here is a two parter for you. Mostly to reinforce that you can build something quite interesting from small chunks of time, as small chunks gradually build up to something much more significant and complex.
Use the below image to create a portrait that is intermingling with nature.
It can be a straight copy of the below image, or you could utilize a different piece of plant, or you could use a different portrait (maybe yourself?!).
Note the media - ball point pen. You can do this, or not. It's up to you.
You might sketch out in pencil one day and add ink/shading the next, or you might go straight to ink and get it as close as possible.
Remember - esp if you are going straight to ink, it isn't about getting as much done in one sitting as possible, but paying attention to the character of the work that you are doing.

Some New Creativity

I've run across a couple more fun creative projects/artists recently that I thought some of you might find interesting.
First up there are these wonderful and funky birdhouses. They come from Thomas Dambo and are primarily using recycled materials. If you search around his website you'll see that he has been working on this project for a while and clearly has others supporting his creativity and endeavors.
Pretty great stuff.

Next up are The Coffee Monsters. I mean, you know that I love coffee, so wandering upon this work was just fun. Pure pleasure. If you take some separate things that already exist and combine them in a different way, that's all creativity is. You don't need fancy materials or expensive media. You do need the willingness to be aware and with what is in front of you though, and that is probably my favorite thing about these little pieces.
If you are interested you can follow along with Stefan and his Coffee Monsters HERE.

Daily Sketchbook 2/5

I love instagram, but you probably already knew that. While I don't post as many pictures of class/work as I used to, I'm still using it on the daily and finding awesome things all the time.
Your task for the day is to choose one of the below photographs as your inspiration and point of beginning/departure.
Have fun!

And of course I totally forgot some things...

Parents:
As I showed on back to school night (btsn), I take many photos in class as the students are working. It's more difficult here at the beginning of the year and becomes easier after a few skills are built and there is more independent work time.

If you want to see some mostly up to date images you can follow my on instagram  as "misterthad"and/or look up the hashtags #lghsart and/or #studio502 (the later of which is only the adv Art classes, sorry Art 1 folks)

As a big fan of Casey Neistat's films and vlog I am also using his newly released (this past summer) app Beme with a username of "thadsmith", so feel free to watch some video on there as well.

Again, thanks for tuning in.

High School Showcase

Nice little write up about the Art Museum of Los Gatos' annual high school exhibition, with a pic in the Weekly of some of out students in front of Sofia's painting. 

Nice!